I took my shoes off as I sat outside on my lunchbreak today. Rested my bare feet on the sun-warmed cement in front of my bench as I ate my sandwich and read my book. It felt great.

Life has been . . . inconsistent lately. In that my work hours alternate between boredom and annoyance and anxiety, while my off hours alternate between fun busy and quietly relaxing.

My Independence Day long weekend was fantastic. Friday, I was productive with errands and cleaning, followed by happy hour with a guy Sharif knows from work and a few of his friends. Saturday, the Fourth, I spent mostly outside with a beer and a book. It was a perfect day for it. Sharif slow-cooked some ribs, I made potato salad, and Lacey provided the corn on the cob. We went to the Catonsville fireworks for the first time, which were awesome. We were approximately 100 yards away from where they were setting the things off. Sunday was Sharif's father's birthday, so there was a family gathering for dim sum. Afterwards, Sharif and I hopped on the Metro into DC, where we exited the Smithsonian station into a surprise (to us) Folklife Festival. We wandered through there for a bit, but our destination was the Native American museum, which neither of us had visited yet. It was very interesting, and I love the building itself. All curves. We finished off the day with about an hour at the Air & Space, including a Planetarium show. Where it was dark, and we were reclined, and I nearly fell asleep to the soothing sounds of Liam Neeson talking about black holes.

I bought Sharif a rather complicated card game for his birthday- Race for the Galaxy, and its first expansion. We've been playing that a lot. I'm currently the two-day, five-game champion. This is exciting, as it's rare for me to do better than Sharif at much of anything. (Aside from Super Mario Brothers. And ovulating.)